Assessment of the environment for the development of women's entrepreneurship in Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal

For the ILO, the promotion of small and sustainable enterprises is a key strategy for generating decent and productive employment for women and men. Women’s entrepreneurship can make a particularly strong contribution to the economy and society. However since women face gender-based and systemic barriers to starting and growing their businesses, they tend to be overrepresented in micro enterprises, in low growth sectors and operate mainly in the informal economy.

In order to remove these barriers, it is important to understand the specific context and find realistic solutions to eliminating them. Therefore the ILO and African Development Bank developed an assessment methodology that enables stakeholders to build actionable recommendations for improving the environment for women’s entrepreneurship development.

This report is a consolidation of five assessments of the enabling environment for women entrepreneurs in Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal.